My new hiring process (part two)

✍️ My old hiring process

It feels important to share (and own up to) my mistakes as a VP, not just my wins.

What I’m about to unpack here involves real people with real feelings.

Discussing this with traditional content “hooks” and ledes also seems insensitive, so I will try to avoid both. The formatting will be kept pretty simple—what happened and what I learned as a result.

I got the green light from all parties involved before sending this newsletter. Let’s get into it.

What happened

Late last year, I knew my first hire would be a product marketer. I didn’t know when I’d get to make this hire, but I had a hunch it was coming soon.

I started putting feelers out with a product marketer (and friend) I’d worked with. Someone I admired and respected. I knew I’d love to work with this person again if the opportunity presented itself.

I told them as much when we’d catch up every month or so.

“I’d love to hire you once this role opens up.” “I think we work great together.” “It’d be awesome to work together again.”

All true statements, but in hindsight, they probably should’ve been tempered with more neutral language.

When I got final approval to hire for this role in mid-January, my friend applied. Like everyone else, I told them they’d have to go through the interview process.

But it wasn’t until the second round of interviews that they realized there’d be competition for the role. Not because I told them — but because other people in the interview process had reached out to them, vetting what it was like to work with me.

In part one of this series, I mentioned the final round of this interview process was a paid work assignment. My friend was one of the three finalists who presented to me and UserEvidence’s co-founders (Evan and Ray).

We narrowed the choice down after the presentations ended—my friend was one of the two finalists. The two finalists were really strong product marketers. 

Do I go with my friend? Someone I know well and have worked closely with before. 

Or do I go with the other finalist, someone unknown to me but stronger in the areas we needed the most help with?

Throw in that this was my first hire at UserEvidence, and you can see how torn I was.

I chose the other finalist (Alex Eaton) based on what I felt the business needed the most. Alex has rocked it at UserEvidence since day one.

Now came the hard part. I had to tell the other two finalists they didn’t get the job. I scheduled 15-minute calls with each person to deliver the bad news.

To say I was anxious to tell my friend they didn’t get the job is an understatement. I practiced what I’d say on repeat, talked to my therapist about it, and hardly slept the night before.

We hopped on the call, and I got right to it. I breezed my way through the conversation with lines like, “We’ve decided to go in a different direction” and “This was a really tough call.”

They replied, “No hard feelings. It’s just business.” And that was that.

What I learned

The thing about mistakes is that they aren’t always obvious to you.

Subconsciously, I knew I hadn’t been as transparent as I could’ve been with my friend throughout the hiring process. That’s probably one of the reasons I was so nervous to deliver the bad news.

After our call where I delivered the bad news, I texted them and offered my help as they continued their job search. I wanted them to land in a good spot because they deserved it.

They responded with gratitude but also laid out where they felt I’d gone wrong on the EQ components of the hiring process and trying to hire a friend.

My approach made them feel overly optimistic about getting the job. Getting bad news from me—on top of my rushed, one-sided, and surface-level delivery—left them confused and hurt.

It wasn’t easy to read, but it was necessary. And more importantly, it opened the door to having a real, constructive conversation after some time had passed.

It wasn’t clear how much I’d fumbled the ball until we talked on the phone again.

We acknowledged the things that could’ve been done differently from both sides.

I learned that setting boundaries and expectations during the hiring process is beyond crucial. From the beginning, I should’ve been clear that it wasn’t a 100% guarantee that my friend would get the job.

I also should’ve been more forthcoming with constructive feedback on why they didn’t. I was so nervous and worried about letting them down that I didn’t explain what went into my decision.

I just said it was a really hard decision to make. In hindsight, I took the easy way out.

Even if “it’s just business,” hiring (especially in this climate) is an emotional process for both candidates and managers. Bring established friendships into the mix, and you need to be prepared for every possible scenario—including the not-so-fun ones.

When you’re not, at least be prepared to have tough conversations and own up to your mistakes.

This story does have a good ending. Since our follow-up convo, we’ve worked through this painful lesson together and put it behind us. 

My friend texted me a few weeks ago to say:

I respect you for the call we had. You’re doing the best and most that you can. It’s just hard getting old. You eventually let people down. It’s how you pull it around and then put it behind you that counts.

And I'm very thankful my friend coached me through this painful lesson.

🤓 Stuff I’m learning (and digging) right now

• UserEvidence Research Content — a new solution that makes creating data-backed thought leadership content easier and more affordable. Not to mention UserEvidence's biggest product launch ever.

• Koala — I dusted off my old marketing ops chops (they were dusty) and installed Koala on our website last week. You can do some really cool stuff to surface the kinds of account-level insights your reps actually care about.

• Navattic's 2024 Buyer First Report — the 2024 edition officially comes out this Thursday, so you get early access. This report is filled with eye-opening stats on how people want to evaluate and buy new SaaS tools.

💰Opinions are cheap and proof is gold

In episode 7 of The Proof Point, we tackled one of my favorite topics: messaging.

Chris Orlob (pclub), Emma Stratton (Punchy), and Anthony Pierri (FletchPMM) brought the heat on what you need to be thinking of (and when) if you want your messaging to land with the right buyers.

My biggest takeaways:

• Balance outcome and feature-driven messaging. While many believe leading with outcomes is the best approach, there’s a time and a place for focusing on the “what” and “how”.

• Achieving relevance often means excluding a larger part of the market to focus on a specific niche. Your messaging will fall short if you try to be everything to everyone.

• Messaging should be contextualized to appeal to different groups — from early adopters who might prefer customizable solutions, to the late majority looking for pre-built, low-risk options.

Listen on Spotify, Apple, or head over to YouTube watch the show.

UserEvidence, who?

UserEvidence is a customer evidence platform that helps B2B marketing teams generate verified proof points that credibly prove the value of your product.

Using custom surveys at key moments throughout the customer journey, you can capture case studies and testimonials, as well as competitive intelligence, product stats, and ROI data.

Turn happy customers into your best sellers with UserEvidence.